HEIDI BERRY
Firefly/Below The Waves (reissues, 1987/’89)
GLASS MODERN
7/10, 9/10
A folk-rock introduction, followed by a lost treasure of modern song
Across the late ’80s and ’90s, Heidi Berry recorded five albums for British independent labels Creation and 4AD. It’s a slender but profound body of work, yet to receive its due. Born in the USA, raised in Boston, she relocated to London in 1973; falling in with the Creation crowd in the mid-’80s, she recorded Firefly and Below The Waves. Firefly is a lovely folk-rock mini-album, six gorgeous, autumnal songs, played starkly with Martin Duffy, then of Felt, and members of The Weather Prophets, as her backing band. ButBelow The Waves is Berry’s first masterpiece. The ‘rock’ element of folk-rock has fallen away here, and the performances are chimeric and deeply moving. These 10 songs, mournful, elegiac and quietly generous, inhabit similar territory to songwriters like Tim Hardin or the McGarrigle sisters, while Berry’s voice recalls the unpretentious plaint of June Tabor. It’s near perfect. JON DALE
BIBIO
Vignetting The Compost (reissue, 2009)
WARP
7/10
Warp star’s early cuddly psych-folk
Bibio is one of Warp’s most popular streaming artists so it makes sense to bring his early outings for Mush – the Vignetting The Compost LP and “Ovals And Emerald” EP – into the fold. Released on vinyl for the first time, you can hear Stephen Wilkinson getting his house in order with a series of fragrant psych-folk nuggets, hazy in mood and rough around the edges. Like Broadcast and Boards Of Canada, he blends childlike reverie with his immediate environment, conjuring twilight pastorals “The Clothesline And The Silver Birch” and “Weekend Wildfire” which seem to evaporate into the ether. PIERS MARTIN
MARSHALL CRENSHAW
Field Day (reissue, 1983)
YEP ROC
7/10
40th-anniversary reissue of opinion-splitting minor power-pop classic
Hopes were high for . Crenshaw’s eponymous 1982 debut had spawned the irrestible hit “Someday, Someway”, and created an idea of Crenshaw as a sort of radio-friendly college rock Elvis Costello. Possibly for this reason, Steve Lillywhite was drafted as producer for the follow-up, to burnish Crenshaw’s new wave credentials.
